Thursday, 19 February 2015

The Fat Cats in Government Know Best

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Quote: "...the government approves of "lean meat" as compatible with healthy eating.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Juan Candelaria, D-New Haven, would impose
a tax of 1 cent per ounce on soft drinks - including sweetened teas,
energy drinks and soda - and candies that are high in sugar and
calories.

Americans
should pay taxes on sugary sodas and snacks as a way to cut down on
sweets, though they no longer need to worry about cholesterol, according
to scientists helping to revamp dietary guidelines as U.S. obesity
levels surge.

The recommendations Thursday from the Dietary Guidelines Advisory
Committee also call for Americans to reduce meat consumption and to take
sustainability into account when dining.

The panel released its report as the Obama administration seeks ways to fight obesity, which now affects more than one-third of American adults and 17 percent of children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“What we’re calling for in the report in terms of innovation and bold
new action in health care, in public health, at the community level, is
what it’s going to take to try and make a dent on the epidemic of
obesity,” committee chairwoman Barbara Millen of Millennium Prevention
in Westwood, Massachusetts, said in a telephone interview.

Suggestions by the nonpartisan panel of academics and scientists
helps shape school lunch menus and the $6 billion a year Women, Infants
and Children program, which serves more than 8 million Americans buying
groceries from retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Kroger Co.
The recommendations were sent to the two agencies that later this year
will issue the final guidelines that are used to create the government’s
icon for healthy diets, currently a dinner-plate that replaced the
widely used food pyramid.

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“Higher sugar-sweetened beverage taxes may encourage consumers to reduce sugar-sweetened beverage consumption,” according to the advisory panel. “Using
the revenues from the higher sugar-sweetened beverage taxes for
nutrition health promotion efforts or to subsidize fruits and vegetables
could have public health benefits.”

The document states that “lean meats can be a part of a healthy dietary pattern.”

“The food industry is frantic about the guidelines.
They don’t want anything in there that says anything about eating less
of their products. That’s their concern more than anything else.”

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This kind of crap gets discussed all the time here in Canada, since we have universal state-provided healthcare.

After all, the argument goes, since tax-payers are on the hook to pay for people who are careless with their health, it's only fair to extract more money via taxation from those unwilling to live a healthy lifestyle.

First, they started with cigarettes, claiming that the higher rates of cancer means it is fully justifiable to charge more and more and MORE taxes on cigarettes to offset the costs of treating smokers for cancer. Of course, it didn't matter to them when it was pointed out that because of lung cancer's high (and speedy) mortality rate, smokers actually cost less in healthcare than many other typers of cancers, because the patients usually die quite quickly, rather than draining the government coffers for years on end. In fact, it has often been shown that the extra taxes smokers pay means they were already "paying their own way" through the healthcare system about, oh, 200 tax increases ago!

And, as us "smoke 'em if you got 'em" advocates pointed out back then, obesity has surpassed smoking as our number one health concern, so why don't we have taxes on Big Macs that makes buying one of these cultural delicacies set you back $12/burger? It's precisely the same logic.

Well, now it's you fat, lardass ninnies who couldn't help but break a sweat from your blubbering jowls as you complained about all of us irresponsible smokers (spits) who are gonna get your cellulite laden "I need two seats on an airplane" asses taxed into oblivion.

I'd say welcome to the club, but I don't think there's enough fat-acceptance in the clubhouse to make room for more than but one or two of you.

Rest assured, a one-cent per ounce tax on soft drinks is not much, but its purpose is to make a fat-tax legally and socially acceptable, and once it is just a normal part of buying food, it will be boosted to 10%, then 25%, and then, when they discover Americans are still too damn fat, they'll swing into doubling and tripling the price of a burger to solve your problems for you.

But really, the question "the people" ought to be asking is, if it is generally accepted that placing a "fat-tax" on junk-food will discourage people from eating unhealthy food, and doubling or tripling the price of a pack of smokes will encourage people to stop smoking... then what the hell does a progressive income tax, which penalizes you for working harder, do to the work habits of the people in the country as opposed to a flat tax or a consumption tax? Quite obviously, if a tax on burgers will cause people to reduce their consumption of unhealthy food, then doesn't it extend that a progressive income tax will also deter people from working harder? How about when the government dings a man to the tune of 50% or more of his net-worth and future earnings (upon pain of imprisonment) for the crime of attempting to be a husband and father? One would assume the government doesn't actually want us to get married and form stable families despite their constant rhetoric of being for "strong family values," wouldn't one?

Click Picture to follow link to "Smoking Truths"

To further understand what a money-making racket this whole scam is for the government, I highly encourage you to follow this link and watch the video called Smoking Truths, by Ezra Levant, which illustrates quite clearly how the government created the smoking industry, then funds the anti-smoking lobby's NGO's with donations, while all along reaping several times the profits the actual tobacco companies themselves make.
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It's all a big scam!
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